Circulatory System Packet: Worksheets and Hands-on Activities

We recently finished up our unit on the circulatory system. Today, I want to share the new Circulatory System Packet which includes the worksheets, notebook pages, and activities we did with this unit. The kids really loved this unit (and learned a lot too!)!

We started off with an overview of the circulatory system before learning about the heart, blood vessels, blood flow through the heart, blood transport through the body, blood composition (red and white blood cells, platelets), blood types, cholesterol, and diseases of the circulatory system. Plus, we did a number of hands-on activities that the kids really loved!

Today, I’m ready to share our packet and some of the hands-on activities that made this unit engaging for the kids! Our Circulatory System Packet is well over 40 pages!

So, here is what this packet includes:

As we started off our unit, we read a couple of books from the library about the circulatory system. We use these books, but anything from the junior non-fiction section would work. (affiliate links)

Then we talked about the circulatory system in general. Over the first couple of days we did the Circulatory System and Heart worksheets (pages 4 and 5).

Once we had talked about the heart, it was time for a hands-on activity. We spent a couple of days practicing how to take our resting pulse rate. I had them find their pulse on their neck and had them count how many beats they could feel in 15 seconds. Then we multiplied that number by 4. We made note of their resting pulse rate.

Another day, the kids found their pulse rate while resting, while walking slowly, while running, while skipping, and then with the activity of their choice. One of my daughters jumped rope. Another ran up and down the stairs for a minute. Then we wound up finding all kinds of activities to do and check our pulse rate. I had the kids graph their results.

This activity was a huge hit!!

Next, we talked about the blood vessels – arteries, veins, and capillaries. One of the activities was to have the kids locate a few of the major veins and arteries (Aortic arch, Renal vein, Femoral artery, Jugular vein, etc.) We had reviewed the skeletal system before starting this unit, so the kids could see how some bones and blood vessels share the same name (like the femoral artery). They located these using the hand-outs you see below (which are in the circulatory system packet).

We then moved on to our big circulatory system project – which took about a week to complete because we worked on it a bit each day.

1. I took a huge piece of butcher paper and made an outline of the kids with pencil (yes, even my 8th grader did this!). The kids then made a dark outline with black marker.

2. Next the kids drew in some of the major organs. They studied some of the hand-outs to help them figure out where these were. I had them do the brain, heart, lungs, stomach and kidneys.

3. The kids used the veins and arteries sheets to help them start sketching in the major paths. I told the kids that they had to have pairs and their artery and vein had to join in a web of capillaries so they could do the activity at the end.

4.The kids then used red markers for the arteries and blue for the veins. The capillaries were webbing of red and blue. At a minimum, the kids had to have arteries/veins that ran to the brain, lungs, hands, and feet. My older two also had some veins/arteries leading to the other organs.

Blood Transport Activity:

We spent quite a bit of time talking about how blood flows through the heart, to the lungs (to pick up oxygen), then goes back to the heart before being pumped out to the body (to drop off oxygen). We spent time looking closely at the heart hand-out (above) and blood flow through the heart. Then we were ready to trace the path blood takes through out bodies.

First, I demonstrated the flow of blood (I go into a lot of detail about the demonstration in the packet – which chamber blood enters from the body before heading to the lungs to pick up oxygen, etc.). Then, the kids did their own blood flow activity starting with 10 blue tiles in the heart… which had to go to the lungs to pick up oxygen (flip to red)… then back to heart before heading to the toes (or brain) to drop of oxygen (flip to blue)… etc. The kids *loved* this!!

What is blood made of:

Next, we went on to talk about what blood is made of.

If your kids are younger, they might enjoy “making” blood

the fluid is called plasma (corn syrup)

red cells carry the oxygen (red jelly beans)

white cells fight infection (white jelly beans)

platelets help to clot and form scabs (rice)

Then, we went on to talk about the different blood types: O+, O-, A+, A-, B+, B-, AB+, AB-

Blood Type Survey:

We surveyed 50 people about their blood types. We made sure to ask only unrelated people (no parents and children) to make the results as random as we could. But if you don’t have time, I included our results and you can use those instead.

Once you have your results, have the kids add up the totals. Then, have your students graph the results, using a different color for each column. Give them the US results and have them graph those results as well, using the same color for each blood type. How did your results compare with the national averages?

Blood Typing Kit

If you are interested, you can purchase a blood-typing kit (affiliate link). Although I know the blood types of my older two, I couldn’t remember the blood type of my youngest. She was eager to have do the blood typing kit even though it entailed pricking her finger!!

The kit includes a comparison chart once your blood has mixed in each of the water droplets. It was pretty straight forward to do!

Finally, we went on to talk about cholesterol and diseases of the circulatory system. We spent time reviewing what we learned in this unit and the kids did the review matching page.

Pages 43-56 of this packet have various lapbook and notebook pages (with various medical images) that you can use with your students if there is different material you want to cover. Plus, there are a couple of pages that touch on getting rid of waste (kidney) and on the respiratory system (lungs), which our family touched on during this unit.

Once you pay for this packet, you will immediately receive a link to download this file (which will open in a browser window). You will also receive an email from Sendowl (the service I use) to your PayPal email address, which will have a link you can click on to download the Circulatory System Packet. (It will say, “You can download your digital products…” with a clickable link.) Of course, if you have any issues just email me at — liesl at homeschoolden dot com or reply to the SendOwl email that is sent to you. You can also reach me by using the contact form on the blog. ~Liesl

$5.75

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this post are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.

These are some of the packets that are included in our Human Body Bundle. These packets can be purchase separately or you can purchase all of them in one bundle. I included some photos of these packets below.

$6.99 A Study of Cells Unit

$3.50 Human Body Systems

$4.00 Skeleton Worksheet Packet

$5.99 Digestive System

$5.75 Circulatory System Unit (40 pages)

$22.00 BUNDLE OPTION HUMAN BODY: Human Body Systems, A Study of Cells Unit, Skeletal System Worksheet Packet, Digestive System, Circulatory System Unit (Plus, it includes the rough draft version of our muscular system packet which is not yet available publicly.)

We often spend a little bit of time reviewing what we learned the previous year and then add to what we learned.

If you have younger kids, you might want to just jump right in with the Skeletal System Unit and/or the Digestive System Unit.

Once my kids were a little older (with my youngest in 2nd grade and my older two in upper elementary) – we started covering and reviewing Cells (the organelles and their function) each year. I want them to feel comfortable with the names and have a general idea of the “jobs” each of these organelles have. By reviewing it each spring, they’ve gradually come to understand how these work together a little better each year. That will be helpful once they get to high school level biology.

If you have a student who is 8+ you might want to do the units in this order:

Note: Since our family studies one major system each year, sometimes we skim over some of this so we can dive in depth into that particular body system.

Cell Unit

Photosynthesis (and you can do a little tangent about atoms and building molecules)

Human Body Systems (Depending on the age of your kids, you might want to just introduce them to the major human body systems and then move straight on to one of the units below… or you can spend a little time talking about how cells/tissues/organs/body systems work as a whole. The packet you are getting includes ALL the materials, but I’ve added to this over the course of several years, so don’t feel like you need to cover all of this at once!

Skeletal System – We almost always review the major bones of the body each year. Some years, we go into more depth about things like the structure of bones or the axial system. Other times, we review the major bones and move on!

Digestive System – This was a fun, hands-on unit. I would suggest you do this one before the Circulatory System unit.

Circulatory System – In this unit my kids were in elementary and middle school so we did some data collecting, graphing and other activities. If you have younger kids, you can just focus on the blood system (how blood leaves the heart and enters the lungs to pick up oxygen, then returns to the heart where it is sent off to the extremities).

Muscular System – We will be covering this next year (2018, fingers crossed!). This is a VERY ROUGH DRAFT of this packet… and I even hesitated including it in the bundle, but in the end thought it might come in handy if you cover this material before we do! When we get to this unit and when the file is updated you will get an email from SendOwl (the delivery service I use) letting you know!

Hi Angela, My kids were in 8th, 6th and 3rd grade when we did this, but I think the packet would be fine for high school students because the graphics are high quality (i.e. they are the professional-grade graphics about the heart, arteries/veins and so forth, not hand-drawn clipart). A lot of the material is covered in this packet that I will want to go over again in another year or so (when my kids are in high school), simply because they will have a better understanding of how thing work (For example, take red blood cells, platelets and the white blood cells… while the packet touches on the different types of white blood cells, we glossed over this — When my kids are in high school we will probably spend more time on understanding how different types of white blood cells function in the body). And, knowing my kids, I think they will still enjoy some of the hands-on activities… even as they move into high school. The interactive notebook pieces, of course, can be used with any age. Feel free to drop me a note if you have any more questions or need any other screenshots to see if it will work for your teen/s. ~Liesl

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Hi! I’m Liesl!

Do you believe education can be exciting, inspiring, and full of joy? We do too!
I love the quote by William Butler Yeats, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." It's about getting the kids involved, engaged, and fired up about learning (while juggling the rest of life too!)

A bit about me: I have my Master's from Brown University. I have more than 20 years of teaching experience. I was a high school teacher for many years both in the U.S. and internationally and also taught for the University of Maryland before leaving to homeschool my 3 wonderful kids.
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